At first touch everything felt wrong. The flow I felt through Japan just didn't transfer, and everthing that I needed to get through the city scattered with the typhoon. My passport, currency, internet connection, a phone...and when I finally reached Alex, I found out he'd missed my e-mails for the past 4 days, and was expecting me to arrive only a day later. Furthermore, he couldn't even begin to explain how I was going to find him in the city. Eventually an information booth attendant called him and wrote down the City One address in Sha Tin in strange scratchy ticks that a spunky taxi driver understood. Eventually, I stopped demanding what I wanted from Hong Kong, and let the city carry me for a while. That, and a good nights sleep could buy an adventure.
But after 5 hours sleep, I had to peek out the window to see the day...and it was fuzzy and promising breakfast. Our first taste; pan fried chicken feet followed by plate after plate of dim sum surprises. Jeff, Virginia, Eugene and grandma all came to the restaurant to welcome us and offer a new dish that promised health benefits like good skin, beautiful hair, or great reproductive health.
Afterward, we took a tour of the wet market that served as a reference point for Fear Factor ratings on the culinary adventures for the days to come. The fruits we tried were amazing; dragon fruit, pomelo, wax apple, asian pear, and persiminon. Then the butchers offered stomachs and tounges, entrails and tails, heads and claws of animals alive or not for long. Chris and I would point, and Virginia would search her English for a translation. My stomach did not recover for hours; until after a good warm bowl of vegetarian green curry and 2-3 pepto bismols- the travelers friend.

As of today, Wednesday, we have seen half of our guide books already, and keep studying our standby flights again and again to see how we can squeeze in a trip to Lantau, a dinner of sharks fin soup, a lesson from mahjong savy grandma, or a tai chi class with Virginias 70-year-old teacher.
So far, we have seen the smoky Hong Kong skyline from Victoria Harbor, and Victorias Peak. We have haggled with the pushy vendors on Womans Street and the Jade Market. We have tasted the elegant Shanghi delicacies like fried eel, blood curd, and magnificant dumplings, and the simple fish ball noodle houses in Kowloon. We have shopped in the sweltering cramping curio shops on Hollywood Street in Central, and visited an ancient temple where devoted contruction workers renovated it's belly;taking in only burning insense for air.

Today, Hong Kong feels like us. We left Alex's side for the first time, and still managed to get cups of coffee, find the bathroom, and leave New Territories for Hong Kong Island. Like a good host, the city usually bends a bit and offers up her western side to us when we need it, and still gives us a good exotic trip all along.